If you do points 1-4, then 5 is unnecessary, and indeed insulting to the seller. If the seller has experience shipping items (as evidenced by the feedback you just looked at), then the seller knows how to ship.

I had a lady who bought something from me at least once a month for like 6 months in a row, and each and every stinkin’ time she won something I got this form email on how she expected me to use extra care on her item. Like I should pack hers carefully but not everybody else’s?

Also it’s a terrible idea to mark something FRAGILE on the outside. In fact my insurer (ShipSurance, same sort of deal as U-Pic only I like how they handle claims better) advises against it. All it does is ask for trouble. Seriously. Pack it so you don’t NEED to mark it fragile; if it’s packed well enough, it isn’t.

I had this problem twice in a row, I bought a vintage pink Gilner wall planter, you know those pottery ones with the cool perforated metal holder thingys on bottom? Well it arrived in a THIN box with just a tiny bit of that foam sheeting around it, as I was opening it up I could hear it was broke, I was so upset as I was so excited to find one, hadn’t seen one before like this, so I opened it and it was broke down the front middle in half and the back top corner in little pieces, I cried. Then I was mad, lol! So I immediately took several pictures of it, thankfully I had purchased insurance ( this was several months ago) so I emailed the seller the pics right away and told her what I found, and thankfully she immediately returned my money. And I didn’t even bitch about the packaging much, but I should have, it was ridiculous, how could someone package something like that and expect it won’t get broke!!!
But you won’t believe what happened next…
A few days later I found 2 small similar pink gilner with metal bottom table planters, so I bought them, and I told the seller about my previous experience and asked her to please please wrap them extra well padding etc. because they must be fragile. So gee whiz guess what, when I got them the one was broken! Sigh. But it was not as bad as the other one, this one just had the corner broke off, though it was a big chunk, and figured I could glue it back on, and the other one was fine. But the packaging with these planters were not that great either, not as bad as the other but still crappy packaging to let them bounce around against each other, and after I specifically asked her to be careful. So I emailed and told her about it, but that I was going to keep them since it was fixable, but figured I wouldn’t be able to use it as a planter, didn’t know if it would hold water okay, but I just wanted to let her know, and she just blamed it on the post office, argh. Now I know they are hard on packages, but still, what do you expect when they hardly wrap anything?
Now the good news is, I glued the piece back on and it was okay, and the wall planter, I was able to fix too, since the front was broken in half, but it was a clean break I got it back together, and the bigger little pieces in the back top corner I glued back on, but you don’t see the hole where there was pieces too small to glue since it is in the back, and even better, I was upset cause I figured I couldn’t use them as planters, but my smart Hubby said I can fix that, he got a clear uh, what’s the word, like a liquid nails thing, and put that on the inside of all the cracks on the planters so it would be waterproof, so now I can use them! And you can’t see they were broken unless you look up close.

Now in good news, I had some good packaging too, one seller, I had bought two chalkware wall ballet dancers, a male and female, in pink, lol, from the 50s which I was elated to find, had been looking for them for a long time, and he packaged them to go through a nuclear bomb, lol! Each were wrapped separately in tons of bubble wrap, then each in it’s own box, then the two boxes in a bigger box with newspaper. This was right after the other two mishaps, so you can bet for sure I thanked him a ton for taking such good care packaging!!! I paid a good bit for shipping, but don’t mind that at all when it comes in one piece!!

Hehe, long enough response for ya?? ;O))

Thanks for all of the information and tips, everyone!

A number of years ago, I inherited a set of LuRay pastel dinnerware from my Grandmother that I remembered enjoying whenever I visited her home. My sister dutifully sent it all to me: each piece wrapped in a single sheet of newspaper and stacked into a single large moving box, then shipped from Virginia to California via US Mail…

Needless to say, each and every single piece was demolished – I still remember the tears in my eyes as I tossed the entire box into the garbage.

Being a bit miffed, I sent the seller an e-mail w/ pix clearly showing the damage stating that their poor packing led to this result – they actually insisted that there was nothing wrong with their packing! Yet to my amazement, UPS sent me a refund for the item and shipping – IMO, the seller should have had to pay for their negligence.